Welcome to POhWER

We are a charity that provides information, advocacy and advice services across England, offering direct and local support via Professionals and Volunteers. Our independent, free services reach individuals struggling with particular challenges in their lives.

Advocacy means enabling your voice to be heard, speaking for you when you can’t and supporting you when you can. Advocacy is about supporting, enabling, and empowering you to express your views and concerns and access information and services where needed.

If you feel you need to talk to someone about how our services can help you where you live, please click on the 'Make a referral' button below, or call 0300 456 2370.

POhWER now delivers the Independent Health Complaints Advocacy Service to 20 London boroughs. For more information about this service please click the 'Independent Health Complaints Advocacy' button below.

An IMHA is an independent advocate who is specially trained to work within the framework of the Mental Health Act to support people to understand their rights under the Act and participate in decisions about their care and treatment. Read more about this service.

An Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA) can support someone who is not able to make certain decisions about their lives for themselves and has no suitable family or friends to speak for them. Read more about this service.

We provide face to face advocacy to people with a wide range of disabilities in a range of secure settings across the country including Medium and Low Secure units, Brain Injury, residential and CAMHS settings. Read more about this service.

NHS Complaints Advocacy can support anyone who is unhappy with the care or treatment they or someone they know has received from the NHS and is thinking about making a complaint. Read more about this service.

Our Direct Payment Support Services help people to understand the process for being assessed and awarded a direct payment and we provide information and practical support to help people to manage their direct payment. Read more about this service.

Care Act advocates support people who need support to be involved in decisions their local council is making about their care and support but do not have family or friends to help them. Read more about this service.

The Information, Advice & Advocacy Support Centre (iAASC) provides support to clients, professionals and other stakeholders. Our information, advice and advocacy support officers can provide help and support with many different areas such as referrals, signposting and general information & advice.

Latest Events

As part of POhWER Gloucestershire’s partnership working with Gloucestershire County Council’s Safeguarding Board (GSAB), we will be presenting at the the 2018 Safeguarding Roadshow. The Theme for this year’s events is ‘Finding the Balance’ Read more

We need a charismatic and outstanding leader as our new Chair of the Board of Trustees Read more

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Keep in touch

Interested in everything POhWER? Sign up to our monthly newsletter to find out about what events are happening across the organisation, latest news and meet the team! To receive our monthly newsletter click on the sign up button below.